But they did not get that far. Crossing the canal by a liftbridge they swept along the other side and suddenly coming out of the woods saw before them a tented city.
"Why!" cried Cecile, "it's a circus!"
"I saw the pictures on the billboards," her brother admitted. "If we only had the children with us, and everything was all right, we might go."
"Sure we would," responded Neale, smiling.
"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, "is it Uncle Bill's?"
"Yes. I have a letter in my pocket now from him that I've had no chance to read."
"You don't suppose Mr. Sorber knows anything about the children?" said Ruth, a little weakly for her.
"How could he?" gasped Agnes. "But we ought to stop and ask."
"And see about the calico pony," chuckled Neale. "Tess and Dot have been hounding me to death about that."
"You don't suppose Dot could have started out to hunt for the circus to get that pony, do you?" suggested Ruth, almost at her wits' end to imagine what had happened to her little sister and her friend.